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Coach MacLean post-game - 9.19.2013

by
Chris Lund
/ Ottawa Senators

The Sens came out strong against Toronto in their third pre-season game, but ultimately couldn't break down Drew MacIntyre down the stretch, falling by a 3-2 score to the Maple Leafs at Canadian Tire Centre.

Dave Bolland scored the game winner for Toronto at the midway mark of the third with the Sens wrapping up a penalty kill and, with time winding down and the Sens pressing to tie, a penalty call on Patrick Wiercioch with 1:38 to play quashed the potential comeback. Coach MacLean passed along his thoughts on the loss after the game.

Here's what he had to say...

On his expectations and the end result:

Well we expected to come out and have a good effort and an opportunity to win the game. I think we had that. We wanted to see our systemic play, if we had anything, see parts of it take place. We'd like to see our power play and all that fall into place. We'd like to see all facets of our game and I think we, for the most part we did for the first half of the game. I thought after the halfway mark of the game that the Leafs took over the game. I thought particularly Drew MacIntyre, we went in on him four times when it was 2-1 and he kept it 2-1. I thought that ended up being a big momentum shift for them and they took advantage of it. I thought they played harder than we did and probably worked harder than we did in the second half of the game and took advantage of it.

We just wanted to make sure — he wasn't going to play the third period so we took him out and put Andrew on the bench — he couldn't play unless the other guy got hurt so we don't anticipate any issues.

On players that left an impression:

I thought the Pageau line with Petersson was very good. I thought Patrick Wiercioch playing on the right side made a number of good outlet passes and sprung people for plays. I didn't mind the way Ryan and Spezza played. For the most part, at the end of the day you're up and you'd like to bring it home. I thought our young players in the game really gave a good account of themselves and I thought some of our older players, it's their second exhibition game or their first exhibition game and I think that showed as well.

On which goalies are eligible to play:

I think the rule is if one goalie is hurt you can bring a third guy on but he can't play unless the next guy gets hurt too. For us, we just wanted to make sure that Andy wasn't in if he didn't have to be in.

On Pageau:

He's playing well and if he continues to play well he's going to make it very hard. Those are hard decisions. His game has been very consistent and training camp is a long time, we'll see how he can come as you go, but right now he's playing well enough for sure. You just want to keep watching him every day and see how he keeps going.

On if the sloppiness is normal for this time of year:

Well it seems like it's been a long time since we had a pre-season, but I would have to say yes. At the same time we want to get our game going and get our game established. I thought you have to give a bit of credit to the other team, they just don't let you do what you want to do. I thought for the first half of the game we showed the type of speed and skill we can play with and I thought that in the second half of the game, as I mentioned MacIntyre making a couple of saves established momentum and established their game and slowed it down a little bit more. They took advantage. They basically got two power play goals and that ends up being the difference in the game.

On the play around the nets:

Well, we had both opportunities at their net and we could have been harder at our net. They obviously scored two goals, the last goal especially is right around our net, so they were harder at the nets than we were and that's a lot of times the difference when you play them.